PSC-272: Modern Political Thought
Tuesday-Thursday 1:00-2:15, Johns 212
Office Hours: Immediately After Class
Benjamin Storey
294-3574
Johns 111I
Science, Technology, and Modern Politics
From their beginnings in the 16th century, the political communities we call modern have been marked
by a distinctive understanding of the relationship between science and politics. The great English
philosopher, scientist, and statesman Francis Bacon first held out the hope that scientific knowledge
could contribute to the “relief of man’s estate” by improving the material conditions of human life.
Later thinkers have come to refer this project to use science to improve the human condition as a
technological project. Many also hold that improvements to the material conditions of human life
made possible by science and technology have opened up a “brave new world” of unprecedented
political possibilities: less war, more peace, less conflict and misery, more harmony and happiness,
less domination, more freedom, less of human fate determined by accident and force, more of it
determined by reflection and choice.
This course will consider the great arguments for and against this distinctively modern
understanding of relation between science and politics. We will begin by studying Francis Bacon,
the first thinker to draw the connection between a more efficacious natural science and the advent
of fundamentally new political possibilities. We will then turn to Shakespeare, who, in his Tempest,
presents an understanding of the relation of wisdom, power, and politics that can be understood as a
critique of the Baconian view avant la lettre. Next, we will consider the thought of John Locke and
Karl Marx, who first articulated the rival classical liberal and socialist interpretations of the true
meaning of the modern project. Our final major text will be Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a
poetic meditation on some of the shortcomings of the modern project and the mode of human selfunderstanding that project implies. Throughout the term, we will pause from our reading of classic
texts to consider recent essays that will help us relate the thought of our long-dead authors to
contemporary debates about science, technology, and politics.
Books for Immediate Purchase
Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis and the Great Instauration. Edited by Jerry Weinberger. Wheeling,
Illinois: Croft’s Classics, 1989. ISBN: 0882951262.
Shakespeare, The Tempest. Edited by Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 1999.
ISBN: 9780140714852.
John Locke, Political Writings. Edited by David Wootton. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993. ISBN
9780872206762.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Marx-Engels Reader. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York:
Norton, 1978. ISBN 039309040X.
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Aldous Huxley, Brave New World and Brave New World Revisted. Forword by Christopher Hitchens.
New York: Harper Perennial, 2004. ISBN 0060776099.
Schedule
Tuesday, August 27: Introduction
Thursday, August 29: Bacon, The Great Instauration, p. 1-17.
Tuesday, September 3: Bacon, The Great Instauration, p. 19-32; New Organon, p. 1-8 (moodle).
Thursday, September 5: Bacon, The New Atlantis, p. 35-49; Psalm 107 (moodle).
Tuesday, September 10, Bacon, The New Atlantis, p. 49-64; Plato, Timaeus, 20e-26a, Critias, 108e-115c,
119c-121c (moodle).
Thursday, September 12: Bacon, The New Atlantis, p. 64-83; II Samuel, chapters 11-12 (Moodle).
Friday, September 13: Paper I due.
Tuesday, September 17: Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I.
Thursday, September 19: Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act II.
Tuesday, September 24: Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III.
Thursday, September 26: Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV (Guest Teacher: Larry Goldberg, the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
Thursday, September 26, 4:30 PM, Furman Hall 214, CLP Lecture by Larry Goldberg,
“What is Liberal Education?” Attendance Required.
Tuesday, October 1: Shakespeare, the Tempest, Act V.
Wednesday, October 2: Paper II due.
Thursday, October 3: Ray Kurzweil, “The Singularity is Near” (Moodle).
Tuesday, October 8: Leon Kass, “Why Not Immortality?” (Moodle).
Thursday, October 10: Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chapters 1-5.
Tuesday, October 15: No Class (Fall Break).
Thursday, October 17: Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chapters 6-7.
Tuesday, October 22: Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chapters 8-9.
Wednesday, October 23: Paper III due.
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Thursday, October 24: Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 469-500.
Tuesday, October 29: Marx, Theses on Feuerbach and the German Ideology, p. 145-163.
Thursday, October 31: Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 70-93.
Tuesday, November 5: Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 93-105.
Thursday, November 7: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “A World Torn Apart” (Moodle).
Tuesday, November 12: Peter Lawler, “Communism Today” (Moodle).
Wednesday, November 13: Paper IV due.
Thursday, November 14: Huxley, Brave New World, p. 5-62.
Tuesday, November 19: Huxley, Brave New World, p. 63-130.
Thursday, November 21: Huxley, Brave New World, p. 131-179.
Tuesday, November 26: Huxley, Brave New World, p. 180-231.
Wednesday, November 25: Paper V due.
Thursday, November 28: No Class (Thanksgiving)
Tuesday, December 3: Kass, Introduction and Chapter 1 of Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity, p.
1-22, 29-53. Take-Home Exam/Term Paper Outlines Due.
Thursday, December 5: Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, “The New Digital Age;” Evgeny Morozov,
“Future Shlock.”
Tuesday, December 10: Conclusion
Thursday, December 12: Take-Home Exam/Term Paper due at Noon.
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Course Requirements and Grading
Requirements
1. Four short papers: During the term, five short papers will be assigned; you must write four of
them. Papers must be no longer than 2 pages, in 12-point font, with 1-inch margins (line spacing is
up to you). These papers should be organized, compressed, and polished.
2. Take Home Exam/Term Paper: At the end of the term, you will write an essay that radically
rewrites and greatly expands one of the short papers you have written over the course of the term.
This paper is intended to be one of the major writing exercises of your college career, fit for use as a
writing sample for graduate school applications or other future endeavors. This paper should draw
on at least two of our major readings (Bacon, Shakespeare, Locke, Marx, and Huxley) and at least
one of our minor readings (Kurzweil, Kass, Solzhenitsyn, Lawler, Schmidt and Cohen, Morozov).
An outline of your paper is due on Tuesday, December 3 in class; your twelve-page (maximum)
exam will be due on Thursday, December 12 at Noon.
3. Class Participation: Perfect attendance in class and at our guest lecture with no active
participation earns a C for class participation. The addition of regular participation earns a B;
frequent, helpful, intelligent participation earns an A. After 2 unexcused absences, every further
absence results in the loss of one partial letter grade (B becomes B-, B- becomes C+, and so on).
Academic Integrity: In your papers, you must cite our primary texts frequently. Use parenthetical
citations and a works-cited page to document your sources. If you consult any source beyond the
assigned reading for an assignment, you must also cite that source. This includes electronic
resources. Quotations or paraphrases from any source which are not accompanied by proper
citations constitute plagiarism and will be treated as academic integrity violations.
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Grade Composition
Short Papers:
4 papers, 12.5% each
50%
Term Paper:
40%
Class Participation:
10%
Total:
100%
Grade Scale:
Grade Values
Grade Ranges
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
4.0
3.7
3.3
3.0
2.7
2.3
2.0
1.7
1.3
1.0
0.7
0.0
3.83-4.00
3.50-3.83
3.17-3.50
2.83-3.17
2.50-2.83
2.17-2.50
1.83-2.17
1.50-1.83
1.17-1.50
0.83-1.17
0.50-0.83
0.00-0.50
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